


Odi et Amo

by Alyx Bradford (RogueBelle), RogueBelle



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Blackcest, Death Eaters, F/M, First War with Voldemort, House of Black, Rating: NC17, Romance, Sexual Content, Wordcount: 5.000-10.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-31
Updated: 2011-01-31
Packaged: 2017-10-15 06:32:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/158013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RogueBelle/pseuds/Alyx%20Bradford, https://archiveofourown.org/users/RogueBelle/pseuds/RogueBelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A confrontation in the dead of the night, a passion even war can't obliterate, a hate as strong as love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Odi et Amo

**Author's Note:**

> cf, as ever: [My reasoning on the Black family tree and timeline](http://alyxbradford.livejournal.com/42255.html)

_14 June 1977_

Bellatrix doesn't bother lighting her bedroom as she enters, but only throws back the curtains of all her windows, flicking her wand to open the one nearest her bed. A sliver of moon dangles in the night sky, scarcely adding any illumination, but Bella finds the ensconcing darkness comfortable. Though her room is decorated in lush jewel tones, scarlet and violet and azure, in such dim light, the colours can hardly be discerned, all reduced to the merest shadows of their saturated glory.

She pours herself a glass of wine, but does no more than sip from it before collapsing on her bed, sinking into the luxurious fabric. Barely mustering the energy to remove her boots, Bella first curls up, then, finding that too uncomfortable, rolls to lie on her stomach, stretching out her legs as far as they will go. The muscles in her calves and thighs twinge in well-earned agony; Bellatrix may have been put through her paces tonight, but she could not, she is confident, have been found wanting. Certainly she outperformed all the other new recruits, everyone from her year, and had even managed to show up some of those elder and more experienced than her, wizards with far more training in the Dark Arts than she has yet been privy to.

 _'But they,'_ she thinks, preening even through the protesting aches of her body as she rolls to her back, _'are not naturals.'_

Bellatrix lies on her bed in the relaxing shadows for a long while, one hand resting on her chest, feeling her heart rate slide back to normal, waiting for the rise and fall of her breathing to slow to an easy rhythm, allowing herself to be enveloped by the tangible silence of the room, unbroken even by a rustling breeze or night-singing bird. Even her mind is, for once, quieted, worked to exhaustion and glad for a rest. Stillness visits her rarely enough, and usually she lacks the patience for it, but tonight, Bella allows it to claim her, if only for a short time.

As her skin, dewed still with a thin glaze of sweat, begins to lose the heat of adrenaline, the night air chills her, rousing her to motion. Standing, Bellatrix draws a deep breath and rotates her shoulders, and hears a satisfying crack in her joints. With her mind still blissfully emptied, she begins disrobing automatically, first sliding off her belt with its wand-sheath, dropping it onto her bedside table. Her fingers pull idly at the lacing on her front; the robes are designed not unlike those she wears playing Quidditch, drawn tight over her chest but cut away at the waist so as not to hinder her movement. After shrugging out of them and letting them fall unceremoniously to the floor, too tired to hang them properly, Bellatrix slips out of the dark breeches and stockings. She peels herself out of the snug sheath garment, still damp with her sweat, before ridding herself of the last of her undergarments. From her wardrobe she pulls a soft robe, of what she thinks is cherry-coloured silk, and dons it mindlessly, tying the belt loosely about her waist.

Bellatrix then sits on the edge of her bed, pulling out the pins currently taming her riotous curls into a chignon. Releasing her hair feels as glorious as kicking off her boots had, a delight to be savoured with the drop of each metallic restraint onto her nightstand. When they have all been plucked out, she gives her head a shake, letting the tendrils fall back into their wonted places about her head.

A pop at the open window draws her attention, her head snapping at the intrusive noise, her hand instinctively diving for the wand on the table beside her. As she stands, she raises the hawthorn without hesitation at the figure standing before the window, nearly invisible against the night sky. But Bellatrix recognises the silhouette in an instant, as surely as she would her own shadow.

"Why the hell are you here, Sirius?" she demands, not lowering her wand an inch, even though he does not appear to have one in his own hands.

"I--" he begins, not quite looking at her, then breaks off and, with a staggered breath, rakes a hand through his long, dark hair. "I don't know."

His posture, she notes, is as drooping as his confession. This is neither the agile and fluid warrior she has faced at Dueling Club, nor the relaxed and sauntering playboy, so careless of the attention showered upon him, secure in his arrogance. This is a Sirius that Bella has scarcely seen, and who never appears for long: unsteady, not sure of his footing. Bella finds his vulnerability more threatening than susceptible; she greatly prefers an even match in him, a willing and able counter to all that she is. "You must have a reason," she declares. "You must."

He almost smiles, taking a step towards her. "You can't order me to know my own mind, Bella."

Her spine stiffens, and she tightens her grip on her wand. "You don't call me that. You will not."

"Whyever not?" His eyes fail to reflect any light, hidden beneath dropped lids and thick lashes. "It's your name, isn't it?"

Bella sets her jaw to keep her lower lip from trembling, too stung by his drawling ease. "You lost the right to such familiarity," she reminds him sharply. "You lost the right to know me at all. What the _hell_ are you doing here? I should kill you."

"But you won't," he says, softer than she expected. Somehow, it doesn't even sound like a contradiction. "You're not that far gone yet." Before she can growl out an opposing response, Sirius sighs heavily, and says, "I missed you. I _have_ missed you."

Bellatrix blinks. "What in the name of glory... what do you mean by that?"

"Precisely what those very simple words in very plain English would indicate," Sirius snaps, glaring. It's easier, of course, to take out his frustration on her. "You've been on my mind. I missed you. So I-- I came to see you."

She lowers her wand, but keeps a firm hold on it. "You have no right to be here," she says, flicking the hawthorn at two candles on her dresser. The illumination they provide is minimal, but enough to see his face more clearly, perhaps enough for her to see the telltales of a lie, if they are there. "This isn't your house. I'm not your cousin, and I am certainly not your friend."

"I have every right to be here," he insists, the heat of anger and indignation entering his words. "Our fathers blasting my name of that damned tapestry doesn't change the blood that we share."

"Yes, it does!" she snarls, quickly losing the restraint in her voice.

"And it doesn't," he continues, raising his voice to overrun hers, "change our history together. It doesn't wipe out the years of--"

"No, Sirius!" she agrees, with a bitter smile, an almost-laugh choking in her throat. "No, you're right there, our fathers blasting you off the tapestry didn't do that. You managed it all by yourself." As she sets her wand down emphatically on her nightstand, Bellatrix's muscles tauten, her shoulderblades drawing together, her throat tightening, her fingers spreading apart like a wildcat extending its claws for a strike. "You, and those pathetic blood-traitor friends of yours--"

Something of Sirius's usual confidence flashes in his eyes, or maybe it's only the erratic light of the candles catching in the mirror-grey, but he steps towards her, saying gruffly, "Don't act like _my_ friends are the only ones standing between us, Bella." The ease is bleeding out of him, replaced as he is incensed by her invectives. "Mine aren't the ones starting a war."

He knows he's misstepped as soon as her chin affects its typical self-righteous tilt. "It's hardly my fault you've chosen cowards and fools over your _blood_!"

Pointing an accusatory finger at her, Sirius can feel heated blood rising in his cheeks, thrumming in his temples. "Nice to criticise my choice of friends, when you've fallen in with the set unanimously voted 'Most Likely to End up in Azkaban before They Turn Thirty'."

Bella's lower lip juts out slightly, full and far too distracting. Sirius curses himself for even noticing. "And who else should I have turned to?" she asks, in a dolent whisper.

"You didn't need to--"

"You _left_ , Sirius!" He can't interpret the tremble of her jaw, the blush he can barely see in the candlelight or might be imagining, the creasing at the corners of her eyes; hurt, anger, frustration, Bellatrix has always been all feeling, regardless of what the emotion is, and regardless of whether she herself could identify them. "You left. Just like _her_."

That startles Sirius, enough that he jerks back from her. To hear Bella acknowledge, even obliquely, her errant and long-banished sister, jars him more than his earlier realisation that he wanted to see her had done.

But if Bellatrix notices the effect this had on him, it doesn't stop her tirade. "Where should I have turned? These people are my _friends_. They understand what's important." Her chin setting defiantly, she turns away from him, possibly to reach for her wand and force him, somehow, to go. "And they would not leave me."

Sirius grabs her arm before she can turn fully. "Damn it, Bellatrix!" he hisses, "I don't want to end up on the opposite side of a _war_ from you, I don't want to find myself staring down my wand at you--!"

A bitter laugh escapes her. "A sight too late on that count."

Increasingly infuriated, Sirius gives her a shake, and she breaks away from his rough handling. "That's why I had to come see you, Bellatrix, to see if-- there has to be a way for this not to... not to do what it's going to do."

Her head cranes back up towards him, and her eyes reflect none of the room's meagre light as she replies, "It's already done. We've made our choices, the both of us, and there's no undoing it."

But Sirius insists, "There is. There _could_ be. Dammit, Bella!" Both hands tear through his hair before slapping back impatiently to his sides. "I can't let this-- We can't end things like this, Bella, not us, and not--"

"Why not?"

He startles again, less violently than before; he'd forgotten how unsettling verbal sparring with Bellatrix can be, how easily she can unbalance his wits. "Why-- What do you mean, why not?"

That imperious angle of her chin is higher, more affectedly regal than ever, and Sirius has a dim awareness of his simultaneous desires to smack the pride out of her and to applaud her strength of spirit. "I mean, why can't things be like this? I see no reason. You have chosen your side, and I mine. We were--" But her resolve falters here; she draws a hissing breath, bolstering herself. _'We were finished,'_ she thinks, searching for different words to voice. _'I was past it... I swore no one would ever... not ever again...'_ Setting her shoulders back and affecting as disinterested a tone as she can manage, she goes on, "We were fine. We no longer had to exist to each other, except as antagonists, on our own sides of our fence. What changed?"

"I-- Nothing _changed_ , but I--"

"Then why are you _here_?" Her voice raises in pitch, gets louder; Bella can only imitate rhetorical cool-headedness for so long.

"I just realised, Bella... We can't... It can't go like this." He feels an ache, like a hook tugging his chest from the inside out, pulling him out of himself, and drawing along with it words he's sure he never meant to say to her. "It was never meant to be like this. We can't-- We weren't supposed to be like this."

Not wanting to hear what he's saying, Bellatrix shakes her head vehemently, ebony curls tumbling around her cheeks. "Tell me why. What did you realise? Why can't we go on like we were? We were _fine_ like we were!" A pleading note enters that last. _'Understand, damn you, Sirius. This is the only way it can be, now. This is the only way I can bear it.'_

"I don't know what it is, Bella, I can't tell you why I--"

"Tell me _why_."

"I can't--"

"Give me a reason!" Bellatrix yells, with frantic insistence. Feeling tears begin to blur her vision, Bella tightens her hands until her fingernails dig into her palms. "You don't want to end up on the opposite side of a war from me, Sirius, then _give me a reason!_ "

"Because I _love_ you, Bella!"

The roar, torn from Sirius's throat without his command or consent, is followed by a breathless silence. Bellatrix stares, too shocked and appalled to respond. When Sirius remembers to inhale again, the air comes ragged, dry in his throat.

"I wish to every god ever dreamed of by man that I didn't," he continues, quieter. "I wish I could forget I'd ever known you, forget everything about you that's inflicted this on me, and shred the memories from my mind. I can't stand it. I hate myself for it." He pushes his hair back from his face with one hand, lips curling with self-deprecating mockery. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you'd bewitched me," he drawls, chuckling mirthlessly at the poor joke. "That you'd set your spectre to haunting my steps. You could. If you really wanted to. I'm sure you..." His voice drifts, eyes clouding, then his attention snaps back. "But... that's all there is to it, Bella. I love you. And I hate it. I realised that tonight, and I had to... I had to see if..." The sigh ripples from somewhere inside him far deeper than his lungs. "I just had to see you. All right? I had to see you."

He raises his eyes to her, to the dark angel standing before him, with the wavering candlelight setting tiny flames dancing in her hair, giving her skin an unholy lambency. The utter horror sketched on her face, the visibility of her pain, nearly leaves him breathless. For a moment, she looks young, so heartbreakingly fragile, and Sirius thinks, wretchedly, of how young they _are_ , of how young they should be allowed to be.

 _'But that has to be a good thing,'_ he tells himself. _'We could change... we can't be so set in these destinies... We weren't meant to be like this, I know we weren't...'_

He doesn't flinch when she strides forward and delivers the slap he knew was coming, cracking loudly in the silence of the room. Bellatrix has never slapped like other girls, feigning and weak-wristed. Her strike sends a blossom of pain through his jaw, and her nails drag in its wake. Sirius closes his eyes, ready to let her do her worst, ready to let her kill him, if she is so determined. _'That would, at least, be one solution to the problem.'_

But no further blows land on him, and he hears her footsteps, the hard and inelegant thumpings of bare feet against the wooden floor, and opens his eyes again.

Pacing, Bellatrix shakes her head, pressing the heels of her hands to her temples, as though to squeeze out the memory of what Sirius just said. But the pressure of it builds too greatly inside her, a swelling in her chest, paining and obstructing something as simple as breathing, until the fury of it comes pouring out. "Damn it, Sirius, _damn it_!" Stamping her foot like a child, Bellatrix glares at him through the water clouding her eyes. "How _dare_ you?" Something terrible seizes in her chest, a vise clamping down around her life's-blood, arresting the air in her lungs. This is almost a worse betrayal, a deeper treason than his initial departure, an invasion, a violation, an assault on the life she has been working so hard to build. "That you think you can come back here and-- and thrust this upon me--!"

She passes a hand over her forehead, closing her eyes and cursing the water that she feels trickling down her cheeks, overflowing at last from its wells. Her hands are trembling, a sure marker of her rage, or simply her bewilderment. That he could return like this, hurt her like this, when at last she has begun to fill in the gaping cavern his betrayal left behind, when she has just started to replace that part of herself that he carved out, divorcing her from herself...

"I hate you," she whispers, as cruelly as she can manage, wrapping her venom around each syllable until the words glisten. "You left, Sirius, _you_ left, not me. And you don't get to do this now. You don't get to come back here and--" Pride sticks the words in her throat: he does not get to ruin her life again. "What is it you want?" she yells suddenly. "What is it you expect me to do now, with this? Do you expect me to abandon my life, my family, my duties, as you did yours?"

"No," Sirius replies simply, if coldly. "I know you far too well for that, Bella. Once you get fixed on something, you--" Raking his hand in his hair again, he paces two steps, then whips back to her, rounding like a hunting predator on its meal. "But, Bella, if you could-- if it were enough-- we don't have to--" The words aren't there; he can't find the way to express to her his utter terror at the prospect of killing her someday, or his hope that somehow, with some miracle, the war could exist everywhere else except between the two of them.

"You make no sense, Sirius," Bella snaps, wiping in irritation at her eyes. "You want the impossible. And you're thinking only of yourself, as usual!"

"Ha!" Sirius barks. "Fine words, from you!"

"I have my loyalties!" she snarls. "And unlike some people in this room, I've never been turncoat to a one of them!"

 _'If only hearts turned as easily as politics,'_ Sirius thinks. "We could be so much, Bella." He moves forward, swiftly catching her chin in his rough hand. "We dreamed things, once..."

"You killed them, Sirius," she reminds him, grief lending a troubled waver to her voice. "Not me."

"We could revive them." His fingers toy with the curls nearest her ears; his mouth near enough that his breath warms her skin. Bella recognises the seduction, knows how many women have fallen to his sensual plying, and for all the loathing pangs in her gut, directed at him and herself both, she can't muster the resolve to stop him. "It was always you, Bella. It's always been you-- I think longer than either of us could imagine..." The edges of his eyes crinkle, almost fondly, as he searches her shadowed face, his touch tracing the lines of her cheekbones, the set of her jaw, sliding down to the flash in her throat. "You love me, too, Bella, I know it, I know you do... We could be everything..."

His hands sink deep in her hair as his mouth fastens to hers, and for a moment, her arms hang desperately around his neck. The weakness of a younger woman's broken heart yearns, heavy and hopeless as a drowning Ophelia, to believe what he says. The girl's heart wants to hope, wants to find that daring within itself, to defy all reason and cocoon itself in velvet fantasies.

But the acid taste of reality intervenes, and a solid punch connects to Sirius's left shoulder as Bellatrix wrenches herself away, howling, " _No!_ Sirius, you can't have it both ways!" Attempting to draw together her dignity and courage, Bella gasps for breath, but is betrayed by a sniffle. The display of weakness unhinges her further, and she thrashes against him, cursing herself for allowing him this far into her mind and soul. "Let me go, Siri. Let me _go_!"

"No." His fingers press bruises into her back as he clasps her more tightly, and his voice is low and strained. "If I could stop it, Bella, by all the stars, if I could just _make it stop_ \--" He grits his teeth, frustrated to violence at his inability to express this torment, the corkscrew of pain in his chest every time he sees her, the dagger-blade guilt lancing through him every time he wakes with memories of her still at the edge of his dreams.

"It doesn't mean a damn thing, Sirius, all the love in the world doesn't mean a _damn_ thing if you can forget it, betray it so easily!" Hysterical, Bellatrix beats against his chest, her clawing fingers puckering the fabric of his shirt. "How could you? How _could_ you?! You couldn't, so don't say it, don't you _dare_ say it again, I'll kill you if you do, I swear--"

"Bella, _listen_!" he shouts, shaking her violently. "Do you think I _want_ this? Do you think I enjoy this misery? If I had the choice--! But I don't, Bella, I _don't have_ that choice. There is _nothing for it_. I love you, and I--"

"Liar!" she accuses, in a despairing keen. "You're lying, you couldn't love me and say that, Siri, I'll kill you, you're lying, if you loved me, how could you--" Bella's knees fail beneath her, and only the strength of Sirius' arms keeps her upright. Her head falls back, her face contorted with the effort of a dam trying to hold back a bursting river, and her chest shakes, convulsing with half-choked breaths.

Supporting her with one arm locked about her waist, Sirius moves the other hand to clasp her head, his thumb brushing at the tears spotting her cheeks; he can feel the hot flush of blood risen in them, though the room is too dark to let him see. "If I could--" He grasps for words, _any_ words, anything that might express to her the terrible fascination of this pull that he can't escape. "If I could scourge you out of my soul, I would," he promises, his voice a thunder-dark rumble. "If I could make myself forget I'd ever heard your laughter..." He trails his fingers over her jawline, the touch so light it aches against the intensity of his speech. "...banish every memory of your scent and of your step, of your eyes, of..." The words choke him, too fervid to find voice. "Of all of you, Bella. If I could forget you completely--"

"Then just do it," Bellatrix implores, furious at the begging tone but unable to summon anything greater. "You have to be that strong, Siri, I know you are, just _do it!_ "

A searing pain flares in Sirius' chest, an emotion he can't identify, part-rage, part-hunger, part-rapture. "I can't, Bella. I would give anything to put you from my mind, I would give _any_ thing to _not_ love you! But I can't, you stupid bitch, I _can't_!" A ragged sob rives from her throat as he grabs her by the shoulders and pulls her body flush against his. He feels the last thread of her restraint snap, and her forehead drops to his shoulder as she weeps in earnest. Hating him for this, for smashing through all her barriers, for forcing these unwanted emotions on her, Bellatrix still can't make it stop, any more than he could, can't bolster herself any longer against the insistence of the flood. Her curled fist beats powerlessly at him, a futile and useless gesture, and as her tears take the fight out of her, her hand falls flat, open against his chest.

When she drags her head up at last, their eyes meet -- obsidian with a glistening sheen of rain, and weathered, faulty-veined slate -- and in that second, fury and betrayal turn to desperation. One hand drifts over her hair, drawing it back from her face, and Sirius would swear he can feel the fractures splintering in her heart, the agonising rends that send water seeping from her eyes. With no more words to offer her, Sirius kisses her feverishly, his lips possessing hers with drowning desolation, with the abandonment of nothing else mattering, not in this moment, not for this time. Tomorrow, the rising sun will remind them of other claims, other holds on their souls, but for this night, if no other time, they belong to each other.

Sirius doesn't realise he voiced that thought aloud until he hears Bellatrix's whisper, heavy with her inconsolable tears, answering him, "We should have, all along."

With the pinch of sorrow threatening to pluck water from his eyes as well, Sirius captures her mouth again, insinuating his tongue with hers. As his hands pull at the belt of her robe and push the fabric from her shoulders, he feels the thrum of his blood, loud in his temples, almost painful at his heart. He pushes her back to a seated position on the bed, the seeming-black silk robe falling in a pool around her hips, and he dips his head to her throat, hoping to push all argument, all grief, all thoughts from her mind with the relentless plunder of her body. He goes hard at the sight of her, and his hands drop to her chest, gripping hard around her ribcage, thumbs pressed just under the swell of her breasts.

He pauses; his gaze is reverent. In what furied, impulsive joinings they've had before, he's never really _looked_ at her; Bella's image has been a haze of overwhelming female-ness: spicy perfume, messy hair, swollen lips, a vague conception of breasts and parted thighs.

But now he drinks in the sight of her, even knowing what torment he dooms himself to with every second of burning her beauty into his consciousness. Somehow she is smaller than he had ever realised; she has always seemed so tall, so regal, but she must be a full head shorter than him, and, he discovers, his hands could nearly close around her waist. For the first time, he allows himself to appreciate her, and as his fingers explore her curves, he knows they will never forget her shape.

Bellatrix threads her fingers into his hair, watching the light in his eyes, entranced by the reflection of herself in those grey mirrors. She has been wanted, desired, even idolised, but never before has she felt the heart-trembling intensity of being worshipped. As his lips brush over her skin, feather-light touches along the flash of her throat, the curve of her breasts, Bellatrix tries to force from her mind any possible lasting impact of this moment and this decision, and tries even more to forget what it means, the words he spoke to her, that no one else has ever dared to venture.

The questions threaten to regain territory in her mind, and to push them out, Bella draws Sirius up by the shoulders, pulling him onto the bed, her fingers plucking inexpertly at the buttons on his shirt. As she pushes the garment off of him, her hand drifts over his chest, to feel his heartbeat, surprisingly slow. Her own, she's sure, is a staccato symphony, a rapid fluttering against her ribcage. _'Can he be more sure of himself than I am?'_ she thinks, disquietingly. To stave off that possibility, Bella all but flings herself at him, losing her concerns in a soul-deep kiss.

There might never have been any other women, for him, or for any man. As his hands mold to her curves, to the narrow waist swelling out into full, inviting hips, Sirius wonders how anyone else could feel like this, without there being constant tales of people exploding from the sheer intensity of it. _'Maybe no one ever has experienced this.'_ He thinks it unlikely. How could anyone else survive the obsession flowered into a devotion that he knows, despondently, will cleave to his soul forever? What rational man could allow himself to drown so sweetly in his own destruction?

 _'Tomorrow,'_ he thinks, swiftly divesting himself of the rest of his clothing. _'Worry about that tomorrow... worry about willing yourself into a living hell tomorrow... tonight--'_ His heart seems to stop as he looks into her eyes, still imperiled by tears, but pleading with him, begging for the fruition of what they've started. _'Tonight... this is, she is, all that matters...'_

As he pulls her onto his lap, Bellatrix slides her legs to either side of him, guiding herself onto his rigid phallus. Sirius shivers slightly at the tight warmth, the silken heat; as Bella arches at the ripple of pleasure, his head dips, his mouth finding her breast, and she moans as his teeth tug at one erect nipple.

Bellatrix winds her arms around him, holding herself fiercely close, glorying in the feel of their chests pressed together, so nearly that one heartbeat can not be discerned from the other. Her fingernails prick at his back and shoulders, but without their usual vindictiveness. She rocks herself against him, sliding up and down, back and forth, her breath growing heavy with each new thrill to her senses. His hands trail up her back, into her hair, gathering up the wealth of ebony curls, then letting them spill out like a waterfall. His mouth explores every part of her he can reach; his tongue finds a sensitive line trailing from behind her earlobe down to her shoulder; his teeth mark her throat with a series of tiny bites. Sirius's hands rove freely, grasping her buttocks and pulling her closer to him, sliding along her spine, stroking her thighs and hipbones and stomach, searching every inch of her as though doing so will keep her eternally with him. His ministrations rapidly have her mewling in ecstasy, alive with the sparks of elation his touch creates, and when she feels herself approaching the edge, she fastens her lips to his, her euphoric groans muted against his mouth.

When her muscles clench and spasm around him, Sirius can't hold in a gasp; she's perilously close to making him spend himself too early, far too early, because if this stolen moment can't last forever, he needs it at least to go on for as long as possible. He rolls her to her back, capturing her mouth in another lingering kiss as he sets up a new rhythm, one he can control, even with her legs sliding up, her ankles locking together below his shoulder blades.

Bellatrix gives herself over to complete abandon, letting his skillful thrusting drive her out of herself, leaving nothing behind except the fire, the utter rapture of their coupling. "More..." she whimpers, clutching at the tensed muscles of his arms. "Sirius, I--" Her words are lost in a throaty cry as the intensity of the sensory onslaught blurs her vision, and she tosses her head on the cushioning pillows, thrashing with the helplessness to do anything but rock her hips up against his, meeting each of his pounding motions with her own.

When a second climax shudders her, Bella moves her hands to Sirius's shoulders and rolls them both so that she is again straddling him. Sirius falls back against the pillows, his hands braced on Bella's thighs, and as she grinds herself against him, he devours her with his eyes, driven to a pleasurable madness by the beauty of her naked body writhing on top of him. Bella pumps her body to his with wanton desire, losing all semblance of control, driven only by a consuming recklessness, the need to lose herself entirely, and perhaps forever. Sirius responds in kind, grunting and panting as the tension in his body reaches unbearable, explosive levels.

His climax follows close upon her third, his hips buckling and arching up into her, his hands clutching bruises onto her thighs. His mind goes blank, all thought obliterated by a flash of golden light and a tremor that sears through every nerve, through all his blood. The force of it rips her name from his throat in a half-triumphant, half-idolatrous roar, before both quake and begin to tumble down from the heights of glory.

Blissfully exhausted, Bella pulls herself off of him and collapses onto the bed, sprawled languidly out on the dark covers. For a moment, she wants to laugh, feels it bubbling up inside of her, and wonders why that particular joy has never before followed any of her sexual conquests.

For a long while they lie alongside each other, legs still partially intertwined, letting the afterglow slowly be absorbed by the dark of the room, heartrates and breathing returning to normal. Sirius finds her hand by her pillow and covers it with his, insinuating his fingers between hers and squeezing lightly. Already he can feel it ebbing away from them, this last moment when they belong to each other.

Something jumps in the air between them, and Bellatrix feels it too. Suddenly too keenly aware of the tender fragility, of her own vulnerability, Bella jerks away from him, and when she feels another tear start to slide down her cheek, she rolls over, turning her back to him so he won't see.

Sirius sits up, starts to reach out to her, wanting desperately to recapture the time, to make one last, impassioned attempt to convince her that they _could_ lengthen those few minutes to a lifetime. But his hand hovers over her shoulder, hanging there for a second too long without descending, and, tangibly, the opportunity streams away from him. Leaving her amid the tumbled pillows and rumpled covers, Sirius rises, collecting his clothing.

The hand cushioning her head on the pillow is damp, and she refuses to look up, though he makes more and more noise as he prepares to leave, hoping to tempt a reaction from her. He has had all of her that he will ever get, now; if she sees him again, with her own scents still clinging to him, with the haze of lovemaking yet clouding his eyes, she fears she won't be able to let him leave. _'And he can not stay,'_ she reminds herself. _'Sirius is a dreamer, and a fool... we could never be what he wants for us... he's a fool...'_ So she lies in silence, and the last noise she hears before the pop of Disapparating is his sigh, weighted down by regret and disappointment.

  
  
_'Odi et amo; quare id faciam, fortasse requiris?_  
Nescio; sed fieri sentio et excrucior'  
\--Catullus, Carmen 85  
  


**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this work, please check out [my blog](http://cassmorriswrites.com)! I also write original fiction, and my debut novel will be out January 2018.


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